Halleluia, I Made It Through Thanksgiving
Proof you can do holidays the first year after your child dies
Indeed, here it is the Friday after Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday, or at least it was until this year. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, so I prepared and visualized the day — or the non-day — like an athlete training for an event.
Yet another exercise in my year of magical thinking, as Joan Didion so aptly described her year following her husband’s death, I knew I would have to get through this day somehow. In some sort of imagined mindset, I both prepared for the inevitable day and avoided all memory of our traditions at the same time.
Miraculously, it wasn’t even like I had to muscle through it. More like floating, the day opened and closed with ease.
What’s not to love about Thanksgiving? The early morning cooking, the Macy’s Parade, the dog show on TV, setting the table… all those past years.
I’d take a short walk outside while the food was warming and simmering and the turkey was still in the oven. And then that sensation of opening the door to all those holiday aromas! Pure delight. Candlelight over dinner, my family all at one table, a rarity, one I cherished if only for one of a handful of days in the year.
